Marco Zar, a graduate of the Pensacola Naval Air Station, had come to me one day in BUAERO, asking for advice on his procurement problems. His current interest in Vought airplanes was due to his knowledge that I managed the company. An earnest, conscientious officer, he believed that a good deal for his service must needs be a fair deal all around. My tactics during the negotiations were predicated on this fact plus the advice from Guillermo. Details of our contract were argued out before a large conference of Captain Zar’s subordinate officers. The captain won every skirmish pertaining to prices or specification, yet the final conclusions were satisfactory to all concerned. When I returned to Hartford, I passed the word around the shop that the kids could eat for another year, provided Uncle Sam did not refuse us an export permit. With work for the shop we could direct our attention to a new development. It was already clear that biplanes were being outclassed by monoplanes, but they had persisted longer on carriers because of the space limitations imposed there. As a replacement for our two-seat dive bomber, which could carry a 500-pound bomb, we drew up a proposal to construct a folding-wing 500-pound monoplane dive bomber so designed that a carrier could manage its full complement of the new, faster type. The Bureau considered the proposal for a while, and then, instead of giving us the advantage we deserved for having conceived the idea, got out its own specification and published it to the trade. Then they further complicated the problem by advertising for two types, a 500- and a 1,000-pounder. We submitted proposals for both, and were awarded the 500-pound model. Now in order not to get left at the post in case BUAERO finally decided to buy only 1,000-pounders, we decided to build our ship to meet all the tight specifications for the smaller size but still capable of carrying a 1,000-pound bomb. The competition from other manufacturers was tough. Every airplane was stressed to the ultimate and no margins were left for error. After winning a design competition, a manufacturer had to submit an article for test by the trial board at Anacostia. If he beat out his competitors there and won a production award, then followed the trials and tribulations of trying to build his brain child without losing his shirt. Then, after the airplane got into service and developed the unforeseen bugs that always show up regardless of previous care, he had the added responsibility for correcting faults on aircraft he might have donated to the government at a substantial loss to himself. After that, all that remained was to dream up a new model to replace the old, and in the meantime, keep service men in the field to show untrained mechanics how to operate a complicated contraption that was fully as high strung as the president of the company that had built it.